Hacking is about to get a sh*t load more complicated.

Parasmai Conjeevaram
Nov 1 · 4 min read

BCIs are an exponential technology that has the power to completely change almost all the industries we see in our world today. From making communication 10x better to be able to train virtually any profession inside their head, BCIs are virtually limitless.

P.S: read my article explaining them here before you continue.

So why don’t we see them everywhere?!

The answer to this question involves three main factors.

  1. BCIs have ethical challenges. 👩‍⚖️
  2. We don’t have sufficient understanding of the brain. 🧠
  3. BCIs can be insecure 🔒

A huge part of BCIs not being in your workplace, or in any industry for that matter is the fact that the gap between the BCI brain readings getting sent out, and the computer collecting it is quite large, and leaves a gap for hacking.

BCI CYBERSECURITY

We’ve all been hacked. Whether that be our phone, our credit card, Facebook page, or anything connected to WiFi. But imagine if your brain was hacked. The hacker would have access to all the information about you.

This hacker would know your name, address, PayPal password, credit card PIN, your iPhone password, your family, well, I could go on for a long time but I think you get the point. Essentially, this would become a whole new level of cybersecurity.

BCIs send out brain wave frequencies (that they detect using electrodes) to a computer, that then interprets those signals and does something with it. (moving a car, a cursor, or even playing games). The transmission of this signal between electrodes and computer is where the majority of cybersecurity issues arise.

All the different places a BCI could be tampered with

The interesting thing to note is that not only hackers will be attempting to intercept these BCIs, but also large corporations as well. Just imagine the abundance of data that you could get from a person’s head, and then, imagine how much money you could make off that data. All these factors put BCIs at a huge risk. If we can a) find a method to anonymize these signals, or b) create a secure method in which these signals are transferred, we would be able to avoid the question of security in the use of BCIs. The image below describes all the different points at which a BCI system could be hacked or interfered with

ANONYMIZATION

The first “method” to making BCIs more secure and user available is anonymization. Anonymization allows us to do pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It takes the neural signals/waves that are being recorded from your brain and then anonymizes it so that a potential hacker wouldn’t be able to know who you are. Patents for this type of technology have already been made by professors at the University of Washington.

A BCI anonymizer of the BCI can generate anonymized neural signals by at least filtering the one or more features to remove privacy-sensitive information

This image shows the process and steps involved in creating an anonymized BCI
ANS used in a brain to machine interface

HOW IT HAPPENS

Below is a table with all the different parts of a BCI that could be hacked and how they would. (Sorry it’s long 😂).

What this all means is that BCIs are can very easily be hacked, allowing for the misuse of personal data and extreme security risks. Hopefully, with more BCI security systems, we will be able to introduce more BCIs to the world.

FULL CIRCLE

If you’ve read my article on BCIs, you probably are a BCI enthusiast by now! But as I mentioned at the beginning of my article, We’re not going to see BCIs for a while because of all the security risks and ethical issues that come with it. I guess all we can do until then is to sit and wait until we can drive our cars with our brains… 🧠

Thanks for reading! If you loved it, give the article a clap! Always feel free to contact me here: parasmai.conjeevaram@gmail.com

Parasmai Conjeevaram

Written by

Just a 13 year old passionate about emerging tech and changing the world

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